We've all seen what happens when someone can't cross the street in the allotted signal time—the pedestrian gets frustrated and drivers get mad. A program in Singapore lets seniors swipe a card at an intersection so the signal will give them extra time to cross. It's a smart solution to a problem that's increasingly…

The Design Culture Lab at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand is run by Dr. Anne Galloway, an academic researcher whose inquiry takes the form of texts and photographic documentation, as you might expect of someone originally trained in anthropology. But you might not expect some of the other forms her…

The Firefly Upsee is a walking baby carrier, designed to give the experience of ambulation to children who have motor delays or mobility restrictions. It brings the child upright, anchored closely to a caregiver, while also leaving her hands free to explore and play.

Every year, millions of pacemakers, metal hips, and prosthetics outlast the bodies they're designed for. But these medical devices could very well go on to have a second-life—in cars, wind turbines, and even another person.

You might’ve heard about Under Armour’s crazy new zipper that only requires one hand to zip. Though the futuristic magnetic clasp jigsaws nicely with the company’s high-performance standards, the zipper originally came from more humble origins: helping a sick man lead an easier life.

A great artist can make beauty out of any medium, no matter how limited. 97-year-old Hal Lasko embodies this concept. Instead of painting with dozens of expensive brushes or high-end software suites, Lasko uses a tool most of us have used and abandoned years ago—Microsoft Paint from Windows 95.

Modern Farmer has a piece on the future of prosthetics for farmers—apparently an under-addressed research area, with particular injury risks to consider and special material requirements for their design and manufacture. Rose Eveleth talks to David Blum, a farmer who uses a prosthetic leg daily after an injury…

BlindSide is a video game with an entirely aural environment—nothing to see, only sound cues to navigate through space. The story is framed as a horror fantasy: a player wakes up to find himself as Case, a professor suddenly blinded and in a now-destroyed city, with unidentifiable creatures devouring people…

What's the difference between using a wheelchair and wearing glasses? Both take advantage of technology to adjust or enhance human capabilities. Yet we tend to consider people in wheelchairs as disabled, and people with glasses as, well, relatively normal. It's all about perspective.

Auction houses will still sell you exquisite canes from the late 19th and early 20th century. They often feature ornate carved wood or engraved silver, with all manner of designs and images on their handles. For those who aren't antiques enthusiasts, however, canes have been bereft of much contemporary design…

We've added three subdomains to the greater Gizmodo umbrella this week, three awesome blogs that have long been carving out a niche for themselves elsewhere. So here's a hearty welcome to Southland, Abler, and Disquiet.

James Wannerton, head of the UK Synaesthesia Association, has completed his nearly 50 year project to map the London Tube: by its tastes. Wannerton has experienced lifelong synaesthesia—an involuntary union of two or more senses that are ordinarily experienced discretely. For Wannerton, this means "lexical…

Four undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania won this year's James Dyson Foundation Award for their single-arm exoskeleton: the Titan Arm. There are already full-body exoskeleton models on the consumer market; this device proposes an interesting iteration on that technology for users with more isolated…

Artist team Jasmina Llobet and Luis Fernandez
Pons created this installation they call No One Wins: a basketball board with
hoops at multiple heights. This is
one of those charmingly accidental universal designs: suited for players with
all kinds of bodies and skill sets, people using wheelchairs or other gear, the…

Starting in March, Vancouver will require all newly
constructed homes to use lever handles—no more doorknobs, reports the Toronto Star. Lever designs have long been considered superior for their greater ease
of use: